So , it is true that any thought that can be put into propositional form can be put into propositional form. — RussellA
When I look at a red sunset, I am looking at a wavelength of 700nm. — RussellA
What is it that is private here?Inside my head, I may have the private subjective experience of a particular colour. — RussellA
We use "red" as a noun, therefore there must be something to which "red" refers. A bit of reflection might convince you that this argument is invalid. "Santa clause" is a name, therefore Santa exists...However, the word "red" can refer to different objects, as long as they have the same property of redness. — RussellA
However, in common usage, I can think of a thing, such as a postbox, independently of any proposition that it may be within. — RussellA
I will try. — RussellA
It is plain that Bradley thinks of A and B as being like two objects fastened together with a bit of string, and he thinks of R as being like the bit of string. He then remembers that the objects must be glued or sealed to both ends of the the bit of string if the latter is to fasten them together. And then, I suppose, another kind of glue is needed to fasten the second drop of glue to the object B on the one side and the string on the other. And so on without end. Charity bids us avert our eyes from the pitiable spectacle of a great philosopher using an argument which would disgrace a child or a savage. (Broad 1933: 85)
"...the actual colour that I experience in my mind, which could be green for me and yellow for you" is incoherent. — Banno
It might be helpful at this point to again look at one of the great themes, perhaps the main theme, running through all Wittgenstein's work. It's the distinction between what can be said and what can be shown. The notion permeates his work. — Banno
In the Tractatus, a name is the thing it denotes. — Banno
You and I both see the red Ferrari. You say you also have a "private subjective experience", and "No-one apart from myself will ever know what particular colour I am experiencing" - but that's not right. I know you are "experiencing red". You do not see a green Ferrari."...the actual colour that I experience in my mind, which could be green for me and yellow for you" is incoherent.
Why not just say that seeing a red Ferrari is a public experience? — Banno
Like the teacher, he probably didn't mean "thoughts" to refer to identifiable brain events that correspond or fail to correspond to propositions. It was more a matter of putting the reference of symbols in the perfectly realistic context of our deliberate efforts to make sense of them. — bongo fury
4 The thought is the significant proposition — RussellA
I thought it was an interesting question. Can we even talk about experiences or sensations in subjective terms? Or is doing so “running up against the limits of language”? — Luke
In the Tractatus, a name is the thing it denotes. So one cannot say the meaning of a name. One can only show it, by pointing, or by using the name in a sentence. — Banno
And nothing seems to speak against infinite divisibility.
And it keeps on forcing itself upon us that there is some simple indivisible, an element of being, in brief a thing.[62]
If there is a final sense and a proposition expressing it completely, then there are also names for simple objects. [64]
The division of the body into material points, as we have it in physics, is nothing more than analysis into simple components.
But could it be possible that the sentences in ordinary use have, as it
were, only an incomplete sense ( quite apart from their truth or falsehood), and that the propositions in physics, as it were, approach the stage where a proposition really has a complete sense?
When I say, "The book is lying on the table", does this really have a
completely clear sense? (An EXTREMELY important question.)[67]
Our difficulty was that we kept on speaking of simple objects and were unable to mention a single one. [68]
The simple sign is essentially simple.
It functions as a simple object. (What does that mean?)
Its composition becomes completely indifferent. It disappears from view. [69]
Now when I do this and designate the objects by means of names, does that make them simple?
All the same, however, this proposition is a picture of that complex.
This object is simple for me! [70]
The world is the totality of facts, not of things. — Art48
W wants to talk in technical terms (worthy of a diagram) about the propositions and their reference, not so much about thoughts as such: as items in their own right. — bongo fury
A picturial or musical language means that the claim that thinking is a kind of language is not the same as the claim that we think in words. — Fooloso4
It's not as though the concept needs some inner thing to latch onto — Sam26
I would say that everything speaks in favor of common inner experiences, and generally nothing against it. Moreover, isn't this how "we know" that are inner subjective experiences are the same. If they weren't the same experiences, I believe the conceptual public use would break down. — Sam26
Everything speaks in favor of people seeing the same colors, tasting the bitterness of dark chocolate, feeling the hardness of a table, etc. — Sam26
272. The essential thing about private experience is really not that each
person possesses his own specimen, but that nobody knows whether
other people also have this or something else. The assumption would
thus be possible — though unverifiable — that one section of mankind
had one visual impression of red, and another section another. — Philosophical Investigations
But as Wittgenstein is identifying thought as proposition, in talking about propositions, he is also talking about thoughts. — RussellA
It's not as though the concept needs some inner thing to latch onto
— Sam26
This seems at odds with the rest of your post. If this is true, then I don't understand why you would also say:
I would say that everything speaks in favor of common inner experiences, and generally nothing against it. Moreover, isn't this how "we know" that our inner subjective experiences are the same. If they weren't the same experiences, I believe the conceptual public use would break down.
— Sam26
If our concepts do not need "some inner thing to latch onto", then why would our "conceptual public use" break down without "some inner thing to latch onto"? It need not be that: — Luke
@BannoIt is plain that Bradley thinks of A and B as being like two objects fastened together with a bit of string, and he thinks of R as being like the bit of string.
He's getting out of the head, into the language. — bongo fury
I know you are "experiencing red". You do not see a green Ferrari." — Banno
There would be no public language if there were no private thoughts. — RussellA
We talk about the language of music, but this is a metaphor, in that music is like language, not that music is language. Music is like language in that there is a relationship between the individual parts. — RussellA
Musical themes are in a certain sense propositions. [40]
Music, some music at least, makes us want to call it a language; but some music or course doesn't. [CV 62]
PI 527. Understanding a sentence is much more akin to understanding a theme in music than one may think. What I mean is that understanding a sentence lies nearer than one thinks to what is ordinarily called understanding a musical theme. Why is just this the pattern of variation in loudness and tempo?
Sometimes a sentence can be understood only if it is read at the right tempo. My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly. [CV 57]
Feeling is an emotional state, whereas thinking requires judgement, reasoning and intellect. — RussellA
The strength of the thoughts in Brahm's music [CV 23]
Music, some music at least, makes us want to call it a language; but some music or course doesn't. ]CV 62]
3.1431 The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs.
Then the spatial arrangement of these things will express the sense of the proposition.
It doesn't latch onto the inner thing in terms of meaning, which isn't to deny that there is some relationship between the inner and the outer public manifestation. There is a correlation or relationship between our inner experiences and how we use the words, and this, it seems to me, would be severed, or would break down publicly. The disconnect would eventually show up in our uses of the concept. — Sam26
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour — for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. — Philosophical Investigations
307. “Aren’t you nevertheless a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you nevertheless basically saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?” — If I speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction. — Philosophical Investigations
In several places Wittgenstein refers to the language of music......................Understanding a musical theme is not simply having a feeling. — Fooloso4
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